On Safer Internet Day on February 7, 2023, The National Association for Media Literacy Education (NAMLE) and The Joan Ganz Cooney Center at Sesame Workshop hosted a webinar with adult and youth experts to discuss issues around well-being and technology. Michelle Ciulla Lipkin (NAMLE), Elizabeth Milovidov (LEGO), and Michael Preston (Joan Ganz Cooney Center) were joined by teens representing the Headstream Accelerator and #ICanHelp.

At the Learning at Home Forum, January 2014
(Photo: Lori Takeuchi)

Congratulations to the Joan Ganz Cooney Center on 15 years! This milestone is no small accomplishment and is a reflection of the Cooney Center’s heart and dedication to youth and their families.

In a recent interview for a position, the interviewer asked me what my ideal work environment looked like. I told her that the first thing that came to mind was my time at the Cooney Center. In my experience, there was just so much to love and be grateful for.

Something that I appreciated most about my time at the Cooney Center was the thoughtful mentorship of Drs. Lori Takeuchi and Michael Levine, as well as getting to work with numerous wonderful colleagues whom I still cherish today. As a former gymnast, I place a high value on being part of a team, working together towards a common goal, and encouraging and sharpening each other along the way. I can wholeheartedly say that the Cooney Center was one of the best teams that I have ever been a part of. Colleagues at the Cooney Center were excited about the work that we were doing, and genuinely interested and invested in connecting families, media creators, and educators for children’s benefit. I looked forward to working with, learning from, and laughing (we did a lot of laughing) with each of these colleagues every day. 

Working on the Families and Media Project felt like a wonderful adventure all across New York City with Lori Takeuchi, Anna Ly, Jason Yip, Rocio Almanza Guillen, Alan Nong, and Kristen Khom. We learned so much from the families that we got the opportunity to observe and talk to, while also making fun memories with each other. I looked forward to hopping on buses across town while lugging our notebooks and research equipment, hanging out with families in their homes for hours, and then talking about what we found in our team meetings. Of course, as a gang of research-loving foodies, we also made time to discover new snacks along the way.

As I reflect, I am also thankful for the ways in which the Cooney Center took risks on me and allowed me to grow so early on in my career. From Lori Takeuchi encouraging me to take the lead on aspects of our Families and Media research project, to Catherine Jhee giving me opportunities to write blog posts and reports, and getting to work with Lili Toutounas on organizing convenings and maintaining communication amongst various research partners and colleagues, the Cooney Center helped me to gain confidence and expanded my experience and knowledge in both research and collaboration. Furthermore, colleagues such as Jason Yip, Elisabeth McClure, Vikki Katz, and Carmen Gonzalez had countless conversations with me about pursuing a PhD. Thanks to their encouragement, I earned my PhD this past August at the USC Annenberg School for Communication & Journalism.

Finally, I am in awe of the way in which time working at the Cooney Center—whether long or short— can foster such a great deal of community. It is a great honor to still be in touch with so many colleagues and to even get to work on some projects with alum like Allison Mishkin and Amber Levinson. While I could write endless pages about my appreciation for the Cooney Center, I will simply conclude by thanking the center and all who have been a part of it. Thank you for the impact you’ve made, both personally and professionally in my own life, as well as the impact you have made in the industry, in families, and in communities. Keep up the great work!

Briana is an independent researcher and consultant who is passionate about the thoughtful creation of content for children and their families. Currently, Briana is a mom to three kids under five years old, which provides her with many opportunities to learn with and about kids in a totally new way. After completing her Ph.D. in communication at USC in the Fall of 2022, she worked as a researcher and consultant on projects for Google and Toca Boca, and as a Production Assistant at Tinkercast. Previously, she worked as a Research Manager at the Joan Ganz Cooney Center and as a Research Assistant for 9 Story USA. 

At the New York Hall of Science with Rebecca Herr-Stephenson, Lori Takeuchi, Caitlin Skopac, and Jinny Ree in 2011

I first learned about the Joan Ganz Cooney Center when I was working with Sesame Workshop’s research team as a graduate student. I was able to join Lori Takeuchi, who was the research director at the time, for fieldwork in Queens on a Cooney-Center study about young children’s perceptions of technology. The questions we asked during our interviews that day revealed that kids in 2010 didn’t differentiate between telephones, smartphones, flip phones, cameras, music players, and gaming devices. At that moment, everything was just a “phone,” and a lot of kids didn’t understand that some forms of technology did “just one thing.” (How primitive, right?!) On the drive back to Manhattan, we had an incredibly interesting conversation about media convergence, kids’ media habits, family learning, and why Mexican food in Southern California is the best Mexican food. 

From that day on, anytime I’ve been lucky enough to work with the Cooney Center, attend an event they are hosting, write a guest blog post, or even just connect with a fellow alum, it always turns out to be a wonderful learning experience that makes me want to be better at what I do. Shortly after the infamous taco day, Lori and Michael Levine offered me a job wearing multiple hats on the research team and communications team with Catherine Jhee. I was excited to jump in and see all aspects of the work JGCC was doing. The research community I have gotten to be a part of, and the quality of work I was able to contribute to, have given me valuable training for the rest of my career. After the Cooney Center, I went on to work as a researcher in Learning and Development at Disney, and at the CREATE lab at NYU where I was lucky to work on research in partnership with Microsoft, the New York Hall of Science, NYCDOE, and the University of Vienna while working towards my PhD. 

When I decided to move back to New York after a three-year stint in Tokyo, and to finish my PhD after some time at home as a mom to my two pint-sized research subjects, my Cooney Center family was among the most supportive and helpful colleagues anyone could hope for. I was so touched by the generosity and care of Catherine when I got a chance to work with her again (while wrangling small kids at home and figuring out the logistics of an international move back home from Japan!), and was so delighted to meet new colleagues and step back into the fascinating and impactful work the center was doing a decade later than when I started. 

Now as I (finally!) finish my PhD this summer, I’m so grateful and excited to once again be collaborating with the Cooney Center through research with my advisor Jan Plass on the RITEC (Responsible Innovation in Technology for Children) project with LEGO and UNICEF. Bringing it full circle, I’m still looking at questions about kids’ media habits and family learning for my dissertation, and always looking for amazing tacos in NYC. 

Read Teacher Attitudes Toward Technology on the foundry10 site

Technology can be a transformative learning tool in the classroom. According to The National Education Technology Plan (NETP), technology has the potential to “affirm and advance relationships between educators and students, reinvent our approaches to learning and collaboration, shrink long-standing equity and accessibility gaps, and adapt learning experiences to meet the needs of all learners.”

While these are lofty goals, to be truly effective, educators need to have the skills and support to take full advantage of technology-rich learning environments. However, teacher insights are often overlooked. Because educational technologies are often expensive to purchase and deploy, school administrators are under intense pressure to quickly choose what will bring the most value to the most students at the lowest cost.

From previous foundry10 technology and learning research, we know that teachers are not always invited to share their perspectives and experiences with a technology before school leadership makes the decision to adopt it school-wide. And once implemented, teachers may not have the time or tools to assess if the technology is genuinely enhancing student learning and reevaluate usage for the following school year.

Read the Report: Teacher Attitudes Toward Technology 

Teacher Attitudes Toward Technology in the Classroom

To bring teacher perspectives on classroom tech to the fore, foundry10 recently surveyed 200 K-12 teachers from 110 schools in Washington state about their attitudes toward adopting and implementing technology in their classrooms. Here are a few key findings with implications for school administrators, technology specialists, and fellow education researchers from our white paper Teacher Attitudes Toward Technology.

• Teachers agree that school is a good place to learn about technology. More than three-fourths of teachers in our sample (78%), including 100% of elementary school teachers, agreed with the statement that school is a good place for students to learn about technology.

• Early career teachers have more concerns about technology than mid-career teachers. Teachers with 1-5 years of teaching experience reported significantly higher levels of concern with technology having a harmful impact on students and society than teachers with more than 20 years of teaching experience.

• The more concern teachers have, the less comfortable they feel about using technology. Teachers’ level of concern was significantly related to teachers’ level of comfort with technology in our study.

How to Support Teachers Using Technology

When school administrators and district technology support professionals dedicate resources to building teacher confidence with using technology in their classrooms, the students benefit. Here are a few tips and resources to set teachers up for success and make the most of classroom technology.

• Offer Relevant Professional Development
  Tailored professional development can help boost teachers’ confidence with technology and develop skills that can be directly applied to their use of technology with students. Our research on STEM professional development indicates that teachers benefit most from training focused on topics that are directly applicable to the current learning environment.

• 50 Tips for VR in the Classroom
  Successful implementation of VR in classrooms can be held back by numerous hurdles, including barriers related to funding, space, equipment, teacher and student comfort with the technology, and more. foundry10’s EdTech team created this resource offering “50 Tips for VR in the Classroom”—based on our extensive real-world experience using and studying VR in education spaces—to help teachers more easily navigate these potential challenges.

• The VR Stress Test
  How do you know if a VR software or game is a beneficial addition to your classroom? What questions should you ask when considering one? The foundry10 VR Software Stress Test offers a method for answering those questions.

• The VR Hardware Comparison Table
  This at-a-glance VR Hardware Comparison Table is designed to help educators more easily identify virtual reality (VR) headsets that meet their needs and budgets.

• The VR Learning Map
  Take a field trip to a local educational virtual reality experience museum or traveling exhibition to test out the latest VR technology. If based in Seattle, check out this VR Learning Map.

• Gather Feedback on Classroom Tech
  Gathering student feedback is a simple but sometimes overlooked method of evaluating the efficacy of educational technologies. Student feedback can help teachers make more informed decisions about their technology practices in the classroom. foundry10’s Guide to Gathering Student Feedback on Classroom Technology can help educators gather and use student feedback to inform their use of technology moving forward.

Though progress has been made in recent years to bridge the technology gap and bring emerging technology to students, it is imperative that we continue to evaluate how technology is used in the classroom to ensure that teachers have the support they need to implement technology in a way that truly brings value to student learning.

About foundry10 

foundry10 is an education research organization with a philanthropic focus on expanding ideas about learning and creating direct value for youth. In collaboration with diverse partners, we surface, evaluate, and share opportunities to better support youth learning both inside and outside the classroom. We do this through applied and experimental research, as well as collaborative philanthropy and educational programming rooted in evidence-based best practices.